And here we go!

I first attached the airbrakes at "closed" position and secured them with stryrene pieces glued from the inside. I then glued styrene pieces at the insides of the wells, in order to provide some kind of inner support for the "closed" doors (I hate to hear the offending :"crack", usually happening at the final stages...):

Attachment of the doors followed, and everything was "solidified" by application of thin liquefied styrene at all joints.

I trapped what is supposed to be the cockpit tub (it's a joke, really, but I will attach a pilot, so, most of the joke will be hidden!) between the two fuselage pieces and glued them together: Fit was so so. The two piece intakes followed... Finally, I assembled the four wing tanks...

I will let everything dry and do an initial coarse sanding tomorrow, before attaching the wings (it will be easier...).

Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks my friend @johnb!
Yep, the Starfighter is absolutely cool!

Thanks Allan @kalamazoo! He is 8 years old, the last couple of years having created kind of obsession with planes!

That's quick and great progress, Spiros @fiveten
Sure you are going to make it before February 7th.
What was the idea of Academy engineers for that structural piece?

Thanks, my friends @johnb and @airbum!

To be fair, I expressed positive comments about this kit at the thread intro, it being "nice and simple". Well, it is not really nice in some areas, the totally empty wheel wells being one of them. This area is very characteristic in the Starfighter and, I believe, even 1/144 (let alone 1/72) kits should represent this area.

The central structural part at the MLG well, is supposed to be the face of the separating "wall" between the MLG wells. Of course, there's no wall, since there are no wells.

This is not a problem for my "closed bays - wheels up" build, though..

So, here she is puttied:

And here is the base that she is going to be attached, leftover from an Academy 1/72 Thunderjet, if memory serves...

Thanks for stopping by!

Painted silver maybe, my friend @airbum?
By the way, display bases are not so often provided by kit manufacturers, which is a pity...
(Also, dollies and the like, but more rarely...)
Those accessories must be supplied with the basic kits. For example, how am I going to display my 1/72 Bv-222, other than scratch build a dolly, of which I will likely not have the best of pic info...

Thanks George @georgeswork!